Storm Aria
by nova A
Summary: A sudden spring thunderstorm, a conversation about beauty, nature, and attraction. GrissomSara romance. No spoilers.


**Author's Requisite Mini-Speech: **Okay, so yes, I've spoiled myself silly for Committed. Now I'm biting my fingernails to the quick waiting for that ep to come on. I was feeling jaded and deprived at the thought of waiting yet another week, so I had to write some GSR. It got a little fluffier toward the end than I originally intended, but I never find it easy to end these things. Hope you enjoy.

**Disclaimer:** If they were mine, I'd certainly make more than eleven dollars an hour. I bet the benefits would be better, too. I could use a new job.

Storm Aria by nova A

"So Days bungled this case?" Sara asked as Grissom pulled their SUV up in front of a worn-down looking white clapboard farmhouse. "More like they let it slip through the cracks," he replied. "It's an animal neglect case. Neighbor called the police when she heard Mr. Averett's dogs howling a little too often." "The neighbor can't be that close," Sara observed. "We're pretty far out in the country here." Grissom raised his eyebrows. "Exactly. The responding officer found more than twenty dogs penned up around back. Four were dead, and the rest were starving or sick or both. They were howling so loudly out of desperation." Sara sighed wearily. "Like a cry for help. Dammit, I'll never understand people who are cruel to animals."

"Anyway," he continued, "Days put it on the back burner, and since we've been a bit slow lately, I thought we'd pick it up." Sara nodded. "Thanks for inviting me along." "I know you like animals, Sara," he replied. "I thought you'd be able to appreciate this case." Flattered, she looked over at him, and he favored her with a quick smile before opening his door and stepping out of the Tahoe.

Grissom carried his camera, and Sara her kit. She followed him up rickety stairs to the front door, where he rang the bell. After a few moments the door opened slowly to reveal a balding, middle aged man with a wifebeater and a sour expression on his face. "Hello, Mr. Averett," Grissom said, flashing his ID. "I'm Gil Grissom and this is Sara Sidle. We're with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. We're here to take a few follow-up photos of your yard."

"You people were already here twice," Mr. Averett gritted, showing yellow teeth. "You all took my dogs. There's nothing new out there." "Still," Grissom said calmly. "We'd like to have a look. And we do have a warrant." "Fine," snapped the man. "But when you're through, I want you the hell off my property." He stepped back and slammed the door in Grissom's face. "Whew," Sara said, raising her eyebrows as Grissom turned around with a grimace. "That was unpleasant." "Think he's got something other than animal neglect to hide?" Grissom asked. They made their way back down the stairs. "Maybe," she replied. "Or maybe he's just naturally so charming." They walked around to the back of the house, where several empty chain-link kennels sat beneath large, stately oak trees.

The air here felt strange. Sara realized that it was full of static electricity; the fine hairs on her arms had begun to stand up. As she put her kit on the ground she accidentally brushed against Grissom. Sara actually saw as well as heard the spark snap between them. "Ouch!" He looked at her, bemused, as she rubbed her arm, feeling a weird residual ache from the miniature shock. Grissom pulled on a pair of latex gloves and turned his police-issue baseball cap around. Silvery curls escaped through the hole in the front. She always loved it when he wore his hat like that; it made him look youthful and roguish, and Sara found it indescribably sexy. She gloved up and caught herself sneaking hungry little glances at him as he began photographing the nearest kennel.

They worked in sync for about ten minutes, taking pictures, observing, and collecting in careful concentric circles through the scene. The sad assortment of evidence included piles of scat, empty dishes, remnants of bones gnawed nearly to nonexistence, and places where the dogs had tried and failed to dig their way out. As they worked, the atmosphere became increasingly charged; before long, Sara was being zapped by nearly everything she touched. The air also began to take on a sultry, heavy smell, as though something was impending, imminent.

"Do you feel this?" Grissom asked. He straightened and squinted at the sky. "Mm hmm," Sara murmured, crouching to study the hard-packed dirt around a kennel. "Pressure's dropping. Feels like rain." "Looks like more than rain," Grissom said. "I think we're in for a spring thunderstorm." Clouds were massing quickly above them, boiling upward, towering dark into the sky. A vague ripple of thunder rumbled like a warning through the yard. "We need to get out from under these trees," she realized, feeling a stab of paranoia as her gaze was drawn through branches toward the threatening thunderheads. Grissom glanced back at the house. "Somehow I don't think we'll be welcome to wait out the storm in there," He said with a wry tip of his head. Sara looked around quickly as the first few fat droplets spattered to the ground. "The barn," she suggested, pointing. "Look, the doors are open." He nodded. "Come on."

Clutching their equipment, they made a run for it, reaching the big red building just as the sky opened up and a deluge of water descended. Sara let out a little half-shriek as they ducked through the wide-set doors. "Are you all right?" Grissom asked. "Yeah," she chuckled. "Rain down my neck, that's all." She stripped off her latex gloves and rubbed the back of her neck, smearing the moisture away. Grissom followed suit, stuffing his own gloves into a pocket; he removed his baseball cap and shook it, flicking water to the ground. Sara glanced around. "This must just be a hay barn," she commented, observing the yellow-gold bales stacked toward the ceiling. Hay was scattered over the hard-packed dirt floor of the barn, giving off a dusty-sweet smell, but the few horse stalls off to their left stood open and empty.

Rain roared on the roof of the barn. Outside, dry parched earth hissed greedy, opening to the storm. There was a seeping smell of water sinking into desiccated soil, of things coming alive, ozone and wet heat. Steam. The land thirsting, drinking. Lightning forked clear and jagged, splintering across the sky. It flashed in the clouds, illuminating them from within like Chinese lanterns. They turned blue and purple and yellow-gray, offsetting the temporary night that the storm had created in this late spring afternoon. Thunder crackled ominous in the lightning's wake, deep as bass drums, pounding and reverberating through the air.

Sara set down her kit and moved to stand at the threshold of the barn; rain hit the ground inches from her toes. "Remember that time you said there are three things people like to watch?" she asked Grissom over her shoulder. "I think this is the fourth." She looked around; spotting a small, decrepit old wooden stool in the shadow of the barn door, she walked over and picked it up. "That was a long time ago," Grissom said, sounding a bit surprised. "Three years," Sara replied immediately.

Grissom raised an eyebrow. "We were talking about beauty that day," he said in a quiet, contemplative way, and paused before continuing. "Do you remember?" "Of course," she answered, deciding it was in her best interest not to analyze where this conversation was going. "How could I forget?" _It was only the strangest, sweetest thing you've ever said to me._ It had been a similar situation to this; just the two of them on a case, and nobody else around. These moments had become few and far between, and she cherished them as guilty pleasures. In fact, she was doing her best not to think of how nice _this_ was, being here alone with Grissom, isolated from the rest of the world by a silver curtain of rain. Of course, she was always attracted to him, but something about this storm was putting all of her senses on heightened alert. She surreptitiously watched Grissom put his hat and camera down on a bale of hay. Even that simple movement sent a twinge through her.

Sara sighed. With the way she was feeling right now, she knew it would be wise to keep a bit of distance between the two of them. She set the stool in front of the barn doors and sat with her feet forward and knees together, leaning with her arms pressed between her legs and chest. The humidity was making her hair revert to its natural form; it curled stubbornly up around her face, little wispy tendrils coiling, framing her cheeks and forehead.

Grissom leaned against the bales of hay and watched Sara look silently out at the storm. It only took a few moments for her to sense his stare and turn around. "What?" She asked with a little self-conscious grin. "Why don't you wear your hair curly anymore?" He asked. She was taken aback at his forward question, but regrouped with a shrug. "I think it makes me look too young," she replied honestly. "I actually used to get carded buying cigarettes when I wore my hair like this." He didn't reply, just kept watching her like she was some specimen worth further study.

"Storms like this are so strange," Sara commented to steer the subject away from Grissom's scrutiny. Having his attention so completely focused on her always caused nervous tingles all over her body; it made her want to squirm, and not necessarily in a bad way. She looked out the doors and rubbed her hands absently over her arms, trying to get the hairs there to stay down; the friction only made it worse and she gave up. "What do you mean?" he asked from behind her. She shook her head. "The energy, the intensity, the charged atmosphere… it's a surreal experience. Like another world, almost, you know? Nature just takes over. All we can do is get out of the way."

"Humbling, isn't it?" he asked.  
Sara considered for a moment. "It's beautiful," she said finally.  
"Beauty is often humbling," Grissom replied easily.  
She looked back and fixed him with a stare. "Do you think so?"  
He regarded her, thoughtful.

Sara turned around; a moment later, Grissom spoke again, and somehow the cadence of his voice had changed. If she didn't know better, she would have said it was almost… suggestive. "You know," he commented, "Thunderstorms are all about attraction. Electrical charges build up within the clouds, and oppositely charged particles gather at the ground below. The attraction between positive and negative charges grows strong enough to overcome the air's resistance to electrical flow, and the two charges race toward each other, connect, and complete the electrical circuit. Charge from the ground surges upward, and that's when lightning is visible."

"Thanks for the meteorology lesson," she responded wryly. "But you're not the only one who's acquainted with the science of thunderstorms. Did you know that the temperature of a lightning bolt is hotter than the surface of the sun?" "I didn't," he answered. "Though I suppose that it's fitting. Such explosive attractions usually create intense heat." His voice was smooth as velvet.

Restless, thoroughly uncertain of the point of this double entendre, Sara stood up and paced a couple of steps to her right, away from Grissom. "Science aside," she demurred, "It's interesting to think of a thunderstorm as a metaphor of attraction. An exchange of energy between the earth and sky…nature balancing itself out. Now _that's_ humbling."

She went on when he remained silent. "You know what I like about lightning?" Sara asked, gaze still fixed on the convenient distraction of the storm. "That anticipation between the flash and the sound of thunder. I used to count…" Sara paused, remembering windy nights in Tamales Bay, waves crashing, thick with foam, against the beach. "My mother," she continued softly, "taught me to count between the flash and the sound, to see how close the storm was. About five seconds for each mile." As though listening to her words, a fork of lightning branched sinuous and dramatic across the dark sky. Sara counted out loud without thinking. "One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand…"

Thunder rolled trembling through them.

"You know what I like about lightning?" Grissom asked. His voice was low and close. His breath puffed against her ear. She realized with a start that he had moved during the last round of thunder; he was standing right behind her. The hairs on the nape of her neck stood straight out, as if reaching for him. Sara shivered. "What?" she somehow responded. "The perfect chaos of it," he said. "You never know when it's going to strike, or how."

"I thought you didn't like surprises," she mumbled, not daring to turn around.  
"I make exceptions every now and then."

Lightning flashed silent outside, throwing a strobe of eerie blue-yellow light over them.  
"One one-thousand," she whispered.

"Two one-thousand," he continued softly. His hands brushed over her shoulders; tiny static shocks went off and her stomach twisted. Thunder boomed abruptly through them and she swayed backward a little, heart palpitating frantically. His fingertips came to rest along the top of her collarbone.

"Two seconds," she said, struggling to keep her voice even. Subtly she half-turned her head, catching a blurry glimpse of him of him in her peripheral vision. "It's getting closer."

"Yes," he commented in an offhand manner. His hands traveled over her shoulders and hovered their way slowly down her bare arms. Goosebumps rose along her skin; she thrummed with the energy of the moment, her insides buzzing and singing along with the storm. Breathless, Sara glanced down and fanned her hands open, fingers pointed toward the ground and spread wide in a careful offering. A slash of lightning made contact outside and faded quickly. Grissom's fingers trailed over the backs of her hands and laced lightly into the spaces between hers. He closed them as thunder cracked so loud it was almost deafening. Sara's entire body vibrated with it. She curled her fingers, letting them press over Grissom's, and exhaled carefully. She felt his chest brush against her back.

"The sky is changed, and such a change," Grissom quoted very softly. "Oh night, and storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, yet lovely in your strength… as is the light of a dark eye in woman."

Sara's heart raced. "Keats?" she managed, playing his game. "Lord Byron," he countered.

"Oh,"was all she could think of to say. They stood without speaking for a few moments, storm sounds filling up the silence between them. Grissom's hands slowly tightened over hers; his breath was warm on the back of her shoulder. "I know it's been three years," he said finally. "But it's never too late to amend a statement, wouldn't you agree?" "Go ahead," She replied, still frighteningly unsure of how far he would take this. "There are _five_ things I like to watch," he murmured. "A fire in a fireplace, a rippling stream…" "A Zamboni going around and around," Sara continued softly. "A lightning storm." She tilted her head to the side. "And?"

"You," he said, his lips against her ear.

That was it for her. She pulled her hands from his and turned to face him. His eyes were impossibly blue in the odd light of the storm.

"Why are you doing this, Grissom?" she whispered.

He skimmed his hands up her arms again, slipping them around the backs of her shoulders. "Because I'm tired of taking beauty for granted," he replied. "Because I've changed my mind about surprises. And because I want to be humble." Calmly he raised his eyebrows. "Would you like me to go on?"

Sara found that she couldn't remember how to speak; she shook her head instead, and Grissom gently tugged her body flush to his. Outside the storm culminated in frantic glory. Thunder and lightning crashed simultaneous, finally in time with one another, and rain sluiced in sheets off the roof of the barn.

The kiss made Sara's stomach dissolve and her heart bounce off of the ground; it unhinged her knees and set her head spinning. She sank into it, losing herself in Grissom, in the patterns of light and dark on the backs of her eyelids and the sounds of rain and thunder in her ears. She put her arms around his shoulders and slid her hands down his back. His lips were eager and sure, and then he opened his mouth to hers and their tongues touched and tangled and he tasted _so good_, and his arms wrapped tightly so far around her that his hands splayed over her ribs. She blazed with heat; it flushed and prickled her skin, ricocheted through her very bones, and she had no desire to breathe because _this_, this kiss was all she could ever possibly need.

She didn't know how long they stood locked together, only that eventually Grissom's lips left hers and she brought her hands slowly up his back as his mouth roamed along her jawline. She allowed herself the luxury of a little drawn-out gasp; it had been so long since anyone had touched her like this, and for it to be Grissom… it was almost too much. Her eyes slipped languidly open, and over his shoulder Sara caught a glimpse of the world outside the barn, wet with residual raindrops. She realized that the thunder had grown distant, settling into quiet, discontented rumblings, and that the sun had begun to streak tentatively through the remaining clouds. Sara also very suddenly remembered exactly where they were, and what they had been doing before the storm began.

"Um," she stuttered, trying to bring her voice back into some semblance of normal range as he nibbled at her neck, then her ear. "Grissom?" "Mmm?" he responded, his tongue making its way silky over her earlobe. She made a strangled helpless sound and nearly forgot what she was about to say. "Grissom… _ah_…we're on the clock… you and I… and… _mmm_…I think the storm is clearing." He pulled back immediately and looked at her, then out the barn doors. "Oh," he said with an air of hapless disappointment. "Right." His arms loosened around her and she felt a rush of dismay at her own stupidity. "Never mind," she said with a quick shake of her head. "I didn't mean it." He kissed her gently before plucking her arms from his neck. "I have an idea. Let's finish up with this scene and get out of here. What would you say to a movie this evening? There's a Hitchcock marathon running downtown." Sara looked, amazed, into the suddenly affectionate blue of his eyes. "I'd say yes," she replied.

Grissom retrieved his hat and camera, and Sara replaced the little stool where she had found it. She picked up her kit and grinned in an almost giddy way when he reached out and firmly took her other hand in his.

"You know," Grissom said, "I think that the best part of a storm is when it's over. It's a fresh start. The world looks new."

"New," Sara affirmed softly. "And definitely better than before."

They walked from the barn out into a glistening world, washed clean by the storm.


End file.
